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Things

This week we question water’s elemental make-up, lazily use a back cover blurb and reveal the possibility of death being something like psychedelic madness. There are at least 97 worse things you could do on a Saturday morning than read the latest edition of Things.

Of Recklessness and Water Elizabeth Weinberg

There are different kinds of water. Appearances differ so dramatically depending on specific factors – weather, landscape, time – that it’s not outrageous to suggest that the contents of a lake, for example, are different in elemental make-up to that of a sea. Elizabeth Weinberg’s photo-book, Of Recklessness and Water, sentimentally proves the point above: that water is a force capable of chameleonic change but is always – always – fun, wondrous, magical.www.elizabethweinberg.com

The Picture Book Angus Hyland, Laurence King

“Compiled by award-winning designer Angus Hyland, The Picture Book presents a broad spectrum of styles, techniques and subject matter representative of current trends and innovations to create a stunning contemporary illustration.” Yikes. Call me lazy, but this back cover blurb pretty much says it all.www.laurenceking.com

Summer Skulls Posters Telegramme

Skulls normally = death and/or general bad stuff. But not these things. These things are skulls on lsd; skulls made of flowers, not bone; skulls that make death look something like psychedelic madness.www.telegramme.co.uk

Zeit – Visuelle Untersuchungen Stefan Kaetz

A final diploma project, Zeit – Visuelle Untersuchungen contains various visual representations of time neatly divided into three chapters. The most effective (at least visually) is part 2 – an 8-page section consisting of highly intricate op-art-inspired illustrations that depict the ‘continuum’ as warped, swelling and beautifully complex.www.neuwerken.com

We’ve been extolling the virtues of graphic designer Sean Freeman since way back in 2008 when some of you were likely still in short trousers and I was at university saying pretentious things about poems I’d half-cribbed from York Notes. In all that time our love for his work hasn’t faded, and while seven years ago we were content to devote just 11 words to Sean, today we’ll dedicate a few more to him to bring you some great recent work.

“It’s a funny thing actually,” Tony Brook tells me, pointing to a series of three posters which have been reprinted especially for design studio Spin’s new exhibition, which opens today. “I was saying this morning to the guys who were putting the show up, when we first made those posters they all just went. 125, bang! Immediately! And we thought that was what would happen every time, because we’d never made anything before. We were disabused of that illusion fairly quickly.”

Spanish studio Clase bcn was tasked with creating the promotional material for The Palau de la Música Catalana’s 2015-2016 season and the result is a playful but refined identity. Encompassing the building’s grandeur, huge banners line the corridors of the concert hall, showcasing the events and people appearing at the Palau, tying them together with a border of lush colours to echo the hall’s eclectic programme. Made up of fragmented shapes the boarder has been translated wonderfully into the other areas of the identity, appearing in milky-coloured pamphlets and a sturdy book.

Annual reports aren’t the most exciting sounding of entities, but in the right hands, they can certainly become beautiful. Take Manchester agency Music’s designs for the British Fashion Council’s 2014/15 annual review. With an all-black cover, gorgeous imagery and bold typography, you’d do well to tell it apart from a slick coffee table tome. The book showcases the BFC’s “five strategic pillars”, according to Music; Business, Education, Innovation & Digital, Investment and Reputation, with imagery from events including London Fashion Week, the British Fashion Awards and London Collections Men.

It goes without saying that we receive more information from screens than we do from paper. But posters are such a superb platform for graphic design experimentation that they seem unlikely to become obsolete. Instead, they’re adapting, and a wonderful example of that shapeshifting is in the smart moving posters of agency Wonder Room. The man behind them is Steve Hockett, who made them in response to seeing his poster designs diluted for online platforms.

You know what we’re like, always going all gaga over pretty colours and GIFS like little typing magpies. But we’re not all about a pretty picture over here at It’s Nice That; and neither is designer Evan Grothjan. While we admit we were initially drawn in by his vivid tones and abstract compositions, it turns out there’s a lot more to his Spaces series than crowd-pleasing aesthetics. Instead, the images form an ongoing investigation into the relationship between space and emotion; something Evan’s been interested in since studying animation as part of his Rhode Island School of Design course.